


The Morning After

by Feeney



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: 2000s, Adult Content, Alternate Universe, Depression, Everything canon except Rachel dying, Humor, Post-Canon, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-05 00:06:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16356821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feeney/pseuds/Feeney
Summary: In a twist of fate, Rachel survives the Yeerk War. But three years later she has broken up with Tobias, has no direction, and is still struggling to adjust in a post-war world where maybe she was never supposed to belong in the first place. Terrorists, paparazzi, college - Rachel's life was never meant to be easy.(I started this fic on Another Site but I'm editing and re-uploading here. If you want to read further ahead you can look it up there, but this will be the version with fewer typos and mistakes. Plot, characters, and everything else will be the same.)





	1. Welcome Freshmen

**BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP!**

My hand shot out from under my blankets and slapped around blindly, searching for the relentless alarm clock.

**BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP!**

_Where was it?_ I ran my fingers over the cherry wood nightstand until I reached the wall behind it. My eyes were still squeezed shut under the covers as I felt around for the electrical socket and tried to pull the cord. Suddenly, a cold hand grabbed mine, causing me to cry out and my tangled blonde head to grumpily emerge.

"Oh. Hey." I retreated back under the blanket.

"You're going to electrocute yourself," Cassie said irritably.

"Good idea. That would definitely count as an excused absence."

"I've been up for an hour," she grumbled, finally shutting off the alarm. "In the sixty minutes since I've been awake, I've heard you snooze this alarm eight times.  _Eight_. If I hear this thing go off one more time I will completely lose it, so would you Please. Wake.  _Up_."

"I am awake," I mumbled into my sheets.

Cassie tore the covers off from over my head. The sudden draft and intense sunlight overwhelmed my senses.

" _Ahhhh!_  Okay, okay, fuck, I'm up!" I whined, trying to burrow myself deeper into my mattress and pillows.

"You are not up! Your first class starts in an hour and since not even a bald eagle can carry a bag full of books to campus, you'll have to drive. You're gonna be late!"

"An hour is plenty of time. We're like fifteen minutes from campus!"

She whacked me with a pillow. "You need extra time to find your classes and get familiar with the buildings. It's you're own fault you didn't want to go to freshman orientation. Hurry up!"

"Can't I just ditch my classes today? It won't hurt to miss one day," I groaned.

"You've missed two days."

"Still not  _too_  bad."

"It's only the third day of classes!" Cassie marched over to my closet, pulled out some random clothes, and tossed them onto my lap. I cringed at her outfit selection. It had been over a decade since we became friends, and she had gleaned absolutely zero fashion sensibility from me in all that time.

"Rachel, come on. You're the only Animorph to go to college, you've got to represent us well."

I scowled, and Cassie immediately looked guilty.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to turn it into that. I _know_  this isn't about what the public thinks. This is about you, and I'm proud of you..." She sat at the foot of my bed. Like when we were just kids, not Animorphs. Not intergalactic superheroes. Not tabloid fodder.

After the post-war fervor had died down a little and the world got bored with praising us, the media took a predictable but nasty turn. Internet blogs wrote that Jake had such severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he should be committed in a mental facility because he was a danger to himself and others. Cassie was accused by the papers of being a pathological workaholic and hypocrite that hid herself in her charity and alien rights work. Tobias was harshly judged and ridiculed everywhere from online forums to daytime talk shows for his decision to remain a hawk after the war had ended. Even Marco, who soaked up attention like it was sunlight, got angry when he read the gossip rag article about his alleged interspecies romantic affair with Ax.

We all agreed, though, that the tabloids enjoyed ruining my life the most. For months now, there was a daily article describing my supposed alcoholism, drug addiction, and promiscuity. Little did they know I had only ever been with one person, never even tried smoking and had only tasted beer once with my dad. Fighting in a war and then being swept up in the aftermath didn't exactly leave me a lot of time for partying, or whatever else this mythical Rachel liked to do.

"...shouldn't let the media nonsense affect you. They're just having a hard time believing that you weren't  _completely_  messed up by the war. They don't understand that you've always been really strong, even when we were little..." Cassie was still talking and I tried to look like I was paying attention, but my mind was wandering.

For the past three years, I lived my life mostly as a shadow. I studied and eventually got my GED at the insistence of my mother, making me the only Animorph with an actual diploma - not that it mattered all that much. I tagged along with Cassie on her Hork-Bajir crusades, went to the occasional red carpet movie premiere with Marco, and made the odd public appearance. I read a bunch of books. I volunteered. I did charity. I even smiled every once in a while. Nothing suspicious. Nothing overtly strange. Nothing...just, nothing.

I still spent most of my other free time in morph, flying as an eagle or sometimes swimming as a dolphin. These days, I did it alone. I liked being alone. Marco had foolishly tried to get me into the party scene, but that idea was doomed from the beginning. Even Ax offered me a place on the Andalite home world, something about a friend looking into "artificial skin fashion" for Andalites. But I never felt like I belonged, unless I was somewhere else. Some _thing_ else.

At that point, I felt like I had seen everything and experienced more at 19 years old than most people do in their entire lives, and I still didn't know anything about who I was. I  _was_  a warrior. I  _was_  an Animorph. I  _was_  a hero. None of those things applied to me now. I had heard most people liked to "find themselves" by either traveling around the world or going to college. But after having been blasted from galaxy to galaxy, timeline to timeline, I figured I was done with the traveling thing for a while.

"...so I'm glad you decided to go the college route. Blythe University is perfect for you."

I snapped out of my trance. Cassie was watching me, wondering what I was thinking or if I'd been paying attention at all. I hadn't been.

"I don't know," I admitted. It seemed my appropriate go-to answer for most things these days.

"I know you," Cassie said firmly. Confidently. "I've seen how you retreat into your eagle morph or whatever, but that's totally okay. It's therapeutic, it can be relaxing if you want it to be and exciting when you need one of your little adrenaline kicks. That's a good thing. I'll be honest, Rachel, I didn't know how you would handle life after the war. You had gotten too into it. Too violent. You genuinely scared me a lot of the time, especially towards the end."

I thought about last week. A bored eagle soaring, skimming the treetops and getting increasingly angry that it was bored. It was looking for prey. There were dozens of chipmunks, mice, possums. I thought of the cat. The large cat that was big enough and vicious enough to take me down and rip me apart.

"But you're okay now." She brushed my too-long blond hair from my forehead. "Your life is wide open, and college will help you figure out the rest."

"I guess."

The eagle had screamed in my head, screamed that the huge cat was not prey. It was the predator. It was going to kill me. The human in me begged and pleaded. The cat belonged to someone. It had a collar. A little silver bell. But I ignored eagle. I ignored the human. I felt nothing inside me, and I needed something. Anything.

The fight had been violent and agonizing. I barely survived. But that just made the cat's stringy muscle taste that much sweeter. When I was done, I left the carcass in the woods and dropped the little collar into a creek. The tiny bell tinkled as it fell.

I wasn't quite as okay as people thought.

Cassie was looking at me hesitantly. "You must be really nervous about school, huh?"

I imagined the sensation of tough cat muscles and tendons churning in my stomach. I forced a laugh. "Yeah, right."

"After all we've been through, you pick now to chicken out? Because you don't want to go to  _school?_ " She was trying to joke, trying to put me in a better mood.

"Shut up," I said, making sure to play my part as the cantankerous best friend. I swung my legs over the side of my bed and got up unsteadily. From the corner of my eye I could see the deep grooves scratched into the surface of my nightstand, the mark of a particularly bad dream. I tried to discreetly moved my alarm clock back to its rightful place to cover them up. Too late.

"Those aren't new, are they?" Cassie asked, looking at the scratches in the wood.

"Nightmare."

"Is that why your nails are so short now?"

I grunted in response as I pulled off my pajamas and pointedly returned the clothes Cassie picked out to my closet. I had no qualms about being naked in front of her. We had been through too much together for either us to care anymore.

"I didn't realize they still got so bad."

That was all that needed to be said. This wasn't the first time either of us had woken up screaming and thrashing uncontrollably in bed. It was just a reality that came with our lives. Cassie had dents and scratches in her own room as well, although hers were admittedly older. She didn't cry in her sleep anymore like she used to.

She moved back on my bed to lean on the wall and hugged her knees to her chest. She was getting comfortable, which meant she definitely wanted to do the whole feelings thing this morning.

Sometimes I wished she wasn't so great of a friend.

"Seriously, you have nothing to worry about. You fought off aliens and aced high school, I think you can handle college. And if you're worried about paparazzi, you know that they're restricted from campus. And the surrounding mile radius. And the airspace around campus. The literal _air_  above the school is restricted."

I dug around for a minute before deciding on something that actually matched. "Whatever. I don't care that much. I'm only going because I don't have anything else. I'm not saving the world anymore, unlike you."

The new outfit I pulled on was miles better than the clown costume Cassie had chosen. I had showered last night, so I could get away with skipping this morning. I inspected myself in the full length mirror hanging from my bathroom door. Passable. When I looked at Cassie's reflection behind me, she was frowning.

"Are you - ?"

"It's kind of sad that I chose the miserable life of a college student, right? " I said quickly, interrupting her question. I'd had just about all the thoughts and feelings I could stand for one morning.

Cassie rolled herself off my bed and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Nah. Maybe someday, I'll get a chance to do it."

"Yeah, sure."

She finally got the hint that I was done talking about it, so she changed the subject. "I'll be out most of the day..."

"You're having a meeting with Good Morning America about the Initiative via satellite until eleven," I said, as I went into the bathroom and splashed some water on my face. Maybe I'd actually get some makeup on. "Then you're meeting with Ronnie for lunch and researching some Canadian nature preserves for the Hork-Bajir Foundation. At three you're going to Marco's place so you both can go over notes for tonight's interview about the Visser's incarceration. Then you'll come home late and tired, but barge into my room anyway and ask me how my first day of school went."

At her surprised look, I grinned.

"I'm just as overly informed about every aspect of your life as you are about mine. Tell Marco I said hi, and that whoever he's sleeping with this week is a - "

"Rachel."

"That last girl, Nina-something? Marco was on antibiotics for two weeks."

" _Rachel!"_

"I'm just saying!" I smirked at her. "Tell Ronnie I say hi, too. We'll talk about  _him_  later."

When I left for school, she was still blushing.

 

* * *

 

I looked up from my dizzyingly complicated campus map. A dozen people simultaneously looked away. It was kind of understandable, since my presence practically put the campus on lockdown. There was no media allowed, and anyone who took a photo of me on school grounds was subject to expulsion or termination from their jobs, in addition to further punitive legal action. My mom had called me the other day and told me the Mayor had made it some kind of misdemeanor or crime or something to distribute photos of me through any channel – internet, cell phone, or otherwise - taken on the Blythe University campus. It was actually kind of cool.

Also, it was widely known that I was sort of rude to anyone who annoyed me. A fact evidenced by the paparazzi guy whose kneecaps I almost fractured two weeks ago for asking me if I had a boyfriend, a somewhat sensitive topic for me. It wasn't a huge surprise that people kept their distance.

Right then, though, I needed help finding the Cooper Building for my Calculus class and there was no one I could ask.

I went into the library atrium and found it nearly empty. It was still early in the semester, so I figured no one had anything to study for yet. There was a coffee kiosk at the center, though unfortunately it, too, was deserted.

Cassie had been right, going to the stupid freshman orientation might have been helpful. I looked back down at the campus map, hoping that by some miracle I could figure out which way to hold it so that it made any sense. If I walked past the coffee kiosk, I'd be going out the west exit and then...

_"Whoa!"_

A tall guy carrying a stack of large cardboard boxes was suddenly in front of me. I was too focused on my map and he couldn't see me over his boxes until it was too late. We collided and found ourselves on the shiny linoleum floor, covered in flaky croissants.

"Watch where the fuck you're going!" I snapped, the fuse on my temper sparked.

"Me?! What about you?! I'm six-two and carrying giant boxes of pastries! How did you not see me?!" He glared at me and, to my surprise, did not waver in his fuming after realizing who he was yelling at. I was too stunned at the fact that someone was being actively angry at me - Rachel Berenson, Savior of the Universe, Decorated Puncher of People That Piss Me Off - to have any of my usual biting retorts.

He climbed to his feet and I did notice that yes, he was tall enough to be hard to miss. His thick black hair was short, but messy in a way that definitely was not just from our run in. It was more like he'd just had his head smushed deep in a pillow and hadn't bothered to comb it. I noted that he was lean, not quite skinny but not broad enough to escape being lanky or awkward. If the boxes had been stuffed with anything other than fluffy croissants he probably wouldn't have been able to lift them all by himself. He was wearing a Superman t-shirt, which was ironic and obviously meant he was a real winner at life.

Some other guy, massively muscled with a neck like a tree trunk, rushed over. His voice was what I imagined my grizzly morph's voice would be like if it could speak.

"Dude, you jackass, do you even know who she is?!"

I hadn't realized, but the few students roaming the library had all stopped in their tracks to stare at us.

"Yeah, I know who she is," Croissant Boy said crossly. "That doesn't mean the oceans have to part wherever she goes. She's not Moses."

Grizzly Bear Guy cracked his knuckles. "You think you're funny? Pushing little girls around? I ought to bruise your skull - "

That made me mad.

"Okay, back off," I said harshly. Grizzly looked surprised.

"Just trying to help. I'm Carter, by the way. I'm a huge fan - "

"Cool. You can mind your own business now, thanks."

Grizzly shook his head irritably and trudged off. I was pretty sure I heard him mutter  _"bitch"_  as he went. The other students started to move again, but slowly, making sure to keep discreetly watching me.

Croissant held his hand out begrudgingly, offering to help me off the floor. "I guess I should thank you for that. Carter could have pulled my head right off my neck with two fingers."

I swatted his hand away and got up on my own, maintaining the fiery glare I had on him. "I'm making all sorts of bad decisions this morning."

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm having a crappy day already and now every croissant that touched the ground is coming out of my paycheck. I'm already scraping together my tuition as it is."

My expression softened, ever so slightly. "Well, maybe if you weren't a dumbass and tried carrying those boxes over one at a time."

"I was late."

"Wow, employee of the year," I sneered.

"I don't need to explain myself to you," Croissant growled. "I said I'm sorry. This conversation can end now. Bye."

He turned his back to me and started picking up the dirty croissants.

"Excuse me, Miss Berenson?"

I jumped. I hadn't even noticed the tiny old man creep up behind me. He wore round Harry Potter glasses and a grotesquely puce sweater vest.

"My name is Mr. Julian Morrow, Head Librarian. I just wanted to say it's a pleasure to have you here!"

"Yeah, okay."

"Was this young man bothering you? Did he harm you? I can make sure he faces strict disciplinary action."

Croissant whirled around to face us, his eyes wide. "I – I didn't - "

"He's not bothering me," I said crankily. For just the briefest of moments I considered letting him get in trouble, but for whatever reason, I realized he was actually the one bothering me the least out of all the people I'd that morning. "It's fine."

"Yes, well, if you're sure - "

"I'm sure," I said shortly. Mr. Head Librarian sensed the tone and left us. It was hard to ignore my tones.

"Thank you for sparing me," Croissant said sarcastically.

"What is your problem?" I demanded. "That's twice now I saved your ass."

"You're the reason my ass is here in the first place!" He accused. "Or, well... You know what I mean!"

"Whatever, I'll pay the for damn croissants."

"I don't want your money."

"Unbelievable."

"What, that money can't fix everything?" he snorted.

I clenched my fists tightly and counted to ten, then to twenty, before squatting down and picking up some croissants from the floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Helping you. Or are you too self-righteous for that, too?" I felt him staring at me as I gathered an armful of croissants. "What?"

"It's just weird to see Rachel Berenson crawling around picking food up off the floor, that's all."

"Would you just shut up?"

"Yeah, sure." I glanced up to see him watching me with a confused expression. "Um, I guess put them in this bag, not back in the box. I can still sell the clean ones."

Wordlessly, I helped him drag the bag of bad croissants and the rest of the boxes to the coffee kiosk at the center of the library atrium, where he worked. He went behind the counter and pulled out a green apron with a name tag pinned to it that read "Gary".

"Gary, huh?"

"Nope." He washed his hands and started to position the croissants into the display case. A ghost of a smile was on his lips. "Ben."

"So...that's kinda weird, then," I said, pointing at the name tag.

"I left my name tag in my dorm. Like I said, I was late. And we're not allowed to work without the name tag. You know, so people could identify us if we spit in their coffee or whatever."

"Seriously. Employee of the year."

Ben suddenly cracked a smile. Not some small polite smile, an all-out bright, dimpled grin. It was maybe more than a little cute, in a weird way.

"Okay. For real now, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been carrying so many boxes that I couldn't see where I was going, and I appreciate your helping me clean up. Can we start over?"

"I don't start over," I said bluntly. "But I guess I could have been paying closer attention to where I was walking."

"You  _guess?_ "

"Do you  _want_  me to get Mr. Julian Morrow Head Librarian and that frat boy ape creature back in here?"

He laughed, a hearty bellowing laugh. Ben did not express his feelings halfway, it seemed. I supposed we had that in common. Except my feelings weren't always quite so...pleasant.

"So what were you looking at so intensely that you crashed into a walking bakery, anyway?" he asked.

I pulled my rumpled map from my bag and set it on the counter. "Cooper Building?"

Ben squinted at it for a few seconds, turned it around, and squinted again. "What the hell is this?"

"Right?!"

"Cooper Building is out the back doors here. Cross the Peace Quad and it will be on your left down the steps, it's the one with the flags out front. I don't know what the fuck that map is of, I've gone to this school for a year already and I can't read that."

"Uh, thanks."

"Yup. Coffee?"

My eyes widened. "Actually, that sounds great."

Ben wiped his hands off, poured me a large cup and handed it to me. "Three dollars."

"What?!" I yelped, before I could stop myself. I could barely remember the last time I walked up to someone and they had me pay for something. My face flushed instantly in embarrassment. God, when I had become  _that_  person.

"Yeah, I know, it's like twenty cents cheaper at the Dunkin' Donuts down the parkway. But I can spot you if you need me - "

"No, it's fine," I said, hurriedly fishing around in my bag for three dollars.

"Or, you know, I can give you the Animorph discount." He winked. I had no idea if he was kidding, if he knew what I had been thinking, or if he was just a weird guy. Somehow, I had a feeling it was all of the above.

"You are really annoying." I plunked three dollars on the counter and grabbed the coffee.

"You're not the first to say that. I am also, however, great at computers and math."

"Huh?"

He motioned at the Calculus textbook and the Welcome Pamphlets I had set on the counter during my search for three dollars. On top was the hopelessly complicated packet about setting up school email and accounts.

"I can help you with that if you want. It can get kind of overwhelming. My shift is up at noon and then I have two classes, but if you're not busy at around three...?"

His proposal just sort of hung there between us. I stared at him. His smile was warm, genuinely pleasant. And yes, he was cute.

 _Smooth,_ I muttered to myself. I had never been flustered by boys before. This problem was a completely foreign concept to me, and it was even more frustrating because I knew exactly why.

My first boyfriend and my first big break-up had left me more than a little broken.

"Just to help with the computer," Ben said suddenly, noting my hesitation. "That's all, no ulterior motive. Not a big deal if you don't want to. I'll live. I promise."

I was being stupid. Why wasn't I saying anything?  _Say something._

"I'm not trying to make this like a meet-cute, I swear," he laughed nervously.

I frowned. "A what?"

"You know, a  _meet-cute_."

"I...don't know what that is."

"Probably better if you don't, actually," Ben said, his face a little more pink than before. "Forget I said that."

I shrugged. "Whatever. Well, I'm busy most of today. Think you could help me out tomorrow?"

Ben nodded. "That's cool. We can meet here. Same time, around three?"

"Yeah, okay. Um, sorry again for walking into you."

"Again? You didn't say sorry the first time!"

I rolled my eyes and muttered, "Jerk."

He snickered and waved me off, thanking me again for helping him. I realized that in the maybe ten minutes of my knowing him, I really, really enjoyed his smile.

When I stepped outside, I almost groaned out loud.

I hadn't  _really_  spoken to Tobias for a year. That was the last time we'd gone flying together, over the mountains near where the Hork-Bajir colony was. Flying with Tobias had been the only thing that hadn't changed between the war and the aftermath. It was just like old times, we didn't talk about the war or the media or anything else that stressed us out. We would just fly, joke, laugh, and occasionally go human for some private time, shielded from the world and the reporters by the natural cover of trees.

It was that last time that I stopped and asked him why, years after the war ended, he hadn't stayed human. Why had he remained a hawk? He had friends, he had me, he even could have had his mother, if he tried. Tobias didn't have to worry about the war anymore, so it shouldn't have mattered whether or not he could morph. I had wanted a boyfriend, a human one, and didn't see why I couldn't have one.

Tobias tried to explain, tried to reason with me. Some bullshit about being too used to the sky, about the human world being too crazy right now. He still hung out with Cassie and I, sometimes even Marco. He talked to Ax every week via the Z-space communications hub Marco had installed in his ludicrous mansion. He thought life was good. He didn't understand that I couldn't deal with him only being human for two hours at a time anymore. I got angrier, and he got quieter. I accused him of being a coward, and he just took the insult, didn't jump at the bait.

But would  _I_ ever give up the power to morph? Could I never be an eagle again, or a bear, or a dolphin. He never pointed out that I spent a lot of my time in morph to avoid the real world, just like him. The fact that he did that, that he was taking the higher road, made me even angrier.

By the time I got to the Cooper Building, I had crushed my empty coffee cup to pieces in my fist. I threw it out and stormed into the building, looking for room 201.

Tobias and I were  _over._  We were over the minute that he said no, he didn't want to be human with me. He didn't want to brave this new world with me. We were  _over._  I loved him for years, waited for him, and I couldn't wait for him to be ready any more.

I knew I was being crazy. That there was absolutely no reason for me to be thinking any of this right now. Because Ben was cute? Because he was the first guy I met in a very long time that I didn't think was an absolute asshole? Where my standards that low?

Standards for  _what?_  I wasn't even  _into_  Ben. I had just met him! I was just crazy, any little thing could set me off in a spiral. That madness had always been with me, but lately it had gotten worse.

I was pissed at myself. At Tobias. At Ben, for no real reason. When I got to the classroom, I didn't even look up at the teacher. I found a seat at the very back of the maybe 50 desks in class, where it was harder for people to turn and stare at me, and focused stonily at the board. I didn't hear a word the professor was saying about differential and integral calculus. I was too busy fuming silently about nothing, and didn't even realize that the hour was over until I heard people start zipping up their bags. I got up and kept my head down, ready to make a quick and easy exit.

"Rachel? Miss Berenson?"

I sighed. It was the professor. "Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say that it's an honor to have you in my class. I know everyone here regards you as a hero, and it is my pleasure to offer my assistance in anything you need for school. Anything at all, I can help you out. Please don't hesitate to ask."

"Thanks," I said, nodding like a puppet. "Okay." I backed out into the hallway before he could say anything else. But after seeing that exchange, my classmates apparently found the courage to talk to me. They all said it was an honor to meet me, they all offered to help me out with anything I needed, they all offered to hang out with me after class, some asked for autographs. I caught a few people rolling their eyes at me and the attention I was getting. Heard some grumbles. Some kids did try and stay out of my way, out of fear or nervousness or whatever.

I forced myself to smile tolerantly and nodded, gave out a few vague "maybe" answers, and excused myself to the bathroom where I hoped no one would bother me. I was wrong, of course, but I eventually got out of there too. It wasn't the worst fan assault I ever had to deal with, but no ambush was a good ambush.

Anxiety was drowning me, filling my lungs and making it hard to breathe. I needed to talk to someone, someone that wasn't going to smother me in a mob. Ducking down behind one of the dormitories, I pulled out my cell phone and called Cassie. I let it ring six times before hanging up. She was still working.

I looked up to the empty blue sky and sighed. No birds, no red-tailed hawks. There was nothing up there - but there was going to be. I hid behind the dumpsters of the closest dining hall, shoved my bag behind it, and morphed. I grew my wings and struggled to gain some altitude. I had to flap relentlessly towards the closest parking lot, just to get some halfway decent thermals. Thankfully, I was able to get high enough to soar over the campus. No one was looking up at me. Only an Animorph had that habit, frequently looking up in the sky for someone they knew. And birdwatchers, probably.

I flapped just a little higher so that I could soar in an arc towards the forest. Blythe University had its own nature preserve, a couple hundred acres of just grass, creeks, woodland creatures, and nerdy biologists taking poop samples. I soared deeper into the preserve, where I was almost sure no one would be hanging out right then in the middle of the day.

My thoughts were like torture, endless back and forth. I owed Tobias nothing. _Nothing._ Yet one random guy offers to help me with email, and I felt like crap. I should have felt good, but there was something inside gnawing at me, telling me I had done something wrong. That I had just put the final nail in a coffin. A coffin that held Tobias, the war, and whatever else had once meant everything to me. Stuff that now meant nothing.

So many people in me class wanted to be my friend. I didn't know any of them, and for all I knew, they would not have said a word to me if I hadn't been all over the their internet homepages. It was superficial, blind, hero-worship crap. All of it. Four years ago, it seemed like everything mattered. Everything I did mattered, my friendships mattered. Now, nothing did. I had Cassie, but there was no Tobias. Barely any Ax. Jake had withdrawn from me, and I did see Marco a couple times a week, but mostly just for trivial business and press things that didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

I knew this feeling. I was losing it. My own deranged version of a panic attack. I was spiraling deeper, uncontrollably into madness as I fought my way higher into the sky, so high that I was starting to get dizzy. Then I angled my wings, pointed my beak down and plummeted.

The bald eagle was like a bullet. Faster than a bullet, practically invisible as it streaked back towards the earth. I felt the bird's already rapid heartbeat race madly, the tops of the trees shooting up towards me like spears. The eagle's brain screamed at me to pull over, it called me crazy. Insane.

 _[WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!]_  I pulled out of the dive seconds before being impaled by the top of a pine tree. The tips of the trees scratched my belly as I skimmed so close to death. Now I was pumped. I was still going insanely fast, having managed to retain most of my speed from the dive, and I arced back upward, forming a loop in midair. This was the best thing in the world.

So why did I expect Tobias to give it up for me?

I slowed down, the high ending so abruptly it was like I had crashed. Of course he wouldn't give up flying for me. Who the hell was I? Without the war making me great, I was just a some blond. A dumb blond not even worth being human for.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a raccoon. It wasn't overly large, medium I guessed, for a raccoon. Plenty big enough to pull me out of the air if it got a hold of me. Plenty strong enough to tear into me. I remembered the cat. The rush. The taste. The thrill of winning, being a champion over a defeated foe.

_TSEEEEEEEEER!_

 

* * *

 

Later, I demorphed and was glad to find that no one had stolen my bag from the dumpster. I dug around in the front pocket until I found some gum and chewed it on my way to class, tricking myself into thinking I was fresh and clean. Before going in, I checked myself in a bathroom mirror. There was a twig in my hair, and a small stain of blood that wasn't mine at the hem of my shirt. It had seeped through from my morphing suit. Tucking it into my jeans was not a good look, so I pulled a sweater on, even though it was near 80 degrees out.

My Economics class had been over for twenty minutes, and I was about to be late for American Literature.

I was able to focus in that one, though. I actually learned things about Edgar Allen Poe. Took some notes, even looked forward to reading tonight. People talked to me, and I didn't feel like running away. I was annoyed, but I successfully repressed the urge to attack anyone, even the ones that stupidly asked me out. I heard some stoners in front of me talking about how they were getting baked in the middle of the woods before class and saw some "hawk" tear apart a raccoon and eat its heart.

But I was chill.

I was cool.


	2. Orientation

When I got back home, Cassie was there. This was a fairly rare occurrence.

We started renting the house together a year ago, since Cassie's work with the Hork-Bajir Foundation needed her close to the city but also close to the Hork-Bajir colony, and I wanted to be close to Blythe University. It was a relatively humble place - three bedrooms, three baths. Cassie's bedroom was right across from mine, and we each had our own attached bathroom. The third room was a small, quiet space at the end of the upstairs hall - just big enough for a twin bed, dresser, and desk. Sometimes I would lie in there and nap, since even my own bedroom occasionally seemed too loud and messy for me to relax. I would leave my phone in my room, along with my laptop, bills, unanswered letters, the scratches in the furniture, the blood in my laundry, and anything else I didn't want to remind me of my new reality. Sometimes I needed refuge from my own refuge.

But it was the window the spare room that I fell in love with, and ultimately helped me make the decision to sign the lease. The window was overly large, an old-fashioned arch shape that opened out like a door and faced the treeline of the woods that edged our secure, gated community. It was so close that a tree branch brushed against the glass. Tobias used to enter through the window. It had been my favorite part of the house.

Our downstairs was just a nice-sized living room, eat-in kitchen, and a bathroom with a broken toilet that we kept forgetting to have fixed. Off the kitchen was another small room that Cassie turned into her home office. That was where I found her, typing away at an email.

I sauntered in without needing to announce myself. She knew the sound of my car pulling up to the driveway, and my muttered curses as I struggled to jimmy the back door open with the blunted key I was too lazy to replace. We always came in through the back door to the kitchen. Our front door faced the main street and even in the gated community, there were too many gawkers out there.

"Hey, what's a 'meet-cute'?" I asked conversationally.

Cassie looked over at me, eyebrow quirked. "Why?"

"Just asking."

"It's like in a romantic comedy. When the couple meets for the first time in a funny, endearing way. You know, Girl tripping on a step and Guy catching her. Guy running to catch a bus and accidentally crashing into Girl. An awkward meeting that becomes something, well, cute."

So, Ben was a  _dork._

"What, did you have a meet-cute or something?" Cassie teased.

"Please. Someone was talking about it in class," I lied. "Anyway, aren't you supposed to be heading to Marco's? You guys have that thing tonight. The interview."

"In a minute. How was your day?" she asked cheerily. I set my bag down, pulled another chair to the computer, and collapsed into it.

 _"School,"_  I said simply.

"What's that?" She was looking down. I saw the blood-stained hem of my shirt sticking out from my sweater and felt a cold sweat. It would be too obvious if I tried to hide it, so I played it off casually.

"Ketchup from the dining hall. It's why I'm wearing this damn sweater even though it's hot as the devil's crotch outside."

Cassie bought it. "Ew. What, was just tucking it in was too uncool?"

"Duh."  _Now_ it was safe to pull the sweater lower, so she couldn't get a closer look.

It was then that I noticed she was grinning brightly, even more so than usual. She was practically vibrating with some kind of awesome news. Obviously, she was dying me to ask her how her day was, I could always tell. Cassie was never the kind of person that just blurted everything on her mind, she liked to be asked. It was a part of her whole thing with putting other people first. If I was half as good a friend as she was, I would just ask about what amazing thing happened to her.

But I opted to be a dick for a moment. "So, in Calculus we learned - "

" _Rachel!"_

"Okay, okay!" I laughed. "Why do you look so happy? You're smiling so wide you barely have room for your ears."

"Toby Hamee is going to have a baby!" she said, clearly unable to restrain her joy. "They said they're going to name it after me!"

I smiled at that. "That's great! Jesus, congrats to Toby! Although wow, I feel like this somehow makes us all grandparents?"

"You know, I felt the same way at first? But with the Hork-Bajir lifespan being as short as it is, I suppose it isn't too strange for them. Toby is six years old, so if she lives to be as old as her mother when she died - about twenty-three? - at this stage of her life she's even older than us in human years." She paused for a moment. "I took this to a dark place, didn't I?"

Our friend Ket Halpak died of old age last year. Imagine our surprise when we found out "old age" to Hork-Bajir meant "barely even old enough to drink". Jara Hamee was only about twenty when he died in battle. Toby's  _kalashi_ was a nine-year-old named, I kid you not,  _Nerf_. Nerf once told us that the oldest Hork-Bajir he'd ever heard of was twenty-seven.

"Uh, kind of. But hey, a new baby Hork-Bajir, that's incredible!" I said quickly. "You're so lucky. I wish I had something cool named after me."

"You have like, ten high schools, a few federal buildings, a couple space ships, and a McDonald's Extra Value Meal named after you," Cassie reminded me. "And that's not including all the little baby Rachels born in the past few years that are probably named after you."

"But I mean, something  _cool._  Like a Hork-Bajir or something," I clarified. Cassie rolled her eyes. "I should visit them, I haven't seen those guys in a while."

"You should come with me tomorrow!" She said enthusiastically, then faltered. "Although, the media has already gotten their claws in this story. Toby is as popular as the Animorphs these days, what with those Initiative terrorists starting to make headlines and all. She's going to have a small press conference. I told her I'd be there for support."

"A press conference?! Already!?"

"Yeah, you know how the media is." Cassie shrugged. "We spoke with Kono, and she thinks it would be best if we got the baby coverage over with as soon as possible, quick and easy. They're coming and setting up a couple news trucks at the base of the mountain outside their colony. Twenty minutes of questions from the press, a ten minute interview with Louise Headwater, and they're gonna wrap it up. Easy-peasy."

"Because everything we do is easy-peasy," I said dryly.

"Anyway, do you think you can make it?"

"I, uh..." I remembered I had asked Ben to help me at the computer lab at around the same time. "I sorta made plans after class..."

She looked at me skeptically. "I know you hate reporters, but I heard it's gonna be catered. Pigs in a blanket. You love those!"

"No, really, I'm not lying," I said. "Sorry. I can definitely catch up with you and Toby after the press conference is over, though? Back at the colony?"

She noticed my vagueness, of course, and was studying me trying to figure it out. "Oh! Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Tobias is going to be there too, of course. I wasn't thinking..."

"No, not because of him," I said honestly. Mostly. I hadn't even been thinking about whether he'd be there, and normally that was something I fixated on. I suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable. "I, uh, I guess I made a friend today."

Cassie's eyebrows shot up. She knew as well as I did that I didn't make friends easily. "A kid from one of your classes?"

"Actually, the coffee guy."

"Oh, well, I see what drew you to him," Cassie laughed. Since the war I had admittedly developed a little bit of a mild multiple-cups-a-day coffee addiction.

"I wasn't  _drawn_  to him," I scowled. "I was lost and happened to bump into him at the library."

"Bump into – is  _that_ why you asked about meet-cutes?!"

"Shut up."

"Okay. Well, he asked you to do something? What are you guys gonna do?" Her knees were pulled up to her chin again. Her listening position. She was going all in and wouldn't leave me alone until I spilled my guts. The girl was probably cackling with glee inside that head of hers.

"I asked him to help me set up my school accounts."

Cassie blinked. " _You_  asked  _him?_ "

"Not really. He offered. I accepted. You know how I am with computers."

She was scrutinizing me with an unreadable expression.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Actually, this is a good thing. A great thing. You should be moving on. This guy has to be nice, if he was able to get you to ask him out."

My mouth dropped open. "I didn't ask him out! I technically didn't even  _ask_  him anything!"

"You shouldn't feel ashamed - "

"I'm not!"

" - or guilty."

"I'm  _not!_ " I protested again, but I saw confirmation in Cassie's eyes. She knew I was lying. She knew I'd been thinking about Tobias pretty much all day. It was rare for me to not be thinking about him, although I would sooner slice out my own tongue with rusty garden shears before admitting that to anyone.

"Well, in case you do feel guilty about anything,  _at all, y_ ou should know that you shouldn't. I think this is fantastic."

I unconsciously put my hand over where the hidden blood stain was.

"So what's this guy's name?"

I sighed. "Ben."

"Cute."

"It's just a name."

"Well, it's a little name. Cute."

"I mean, it's a nickname, isn't it? t's probably short for Benjamin. Or Benedict. He looks more like a Benjamin, though, he - " My eyes narrowed "If you're trying to get me to tell you what he looks like, you're going to fail."

"I'm not trying anything." She was grinning. The more she grinned suggestively at me like that, the more I started thinking about Tobias. She used to make that same expression whenever I talked about him, back when we were together. I felt the darkness was starting to gnaw at me again. I needed to change the subject before I lost it.

"So who's the email to?"

Cassie frowned, her exciting girltalk effectively derailed. "The president."

"What's up with Ol' Georgie these days?" I snagged a couple cookies from the plate by Cassie's mug of tea.

" _President Bush_  is looking for some help in the alien foreign policy department. He's looking to get a feel on the democratic opinion. Also with the Hork-Bajir, Andalites, and Taxxons, he's going to need to address the homeland security problems eventually on the campaign trail. I'm not a fan of his, but I could at least use this opportunity to get a good feel on American - "

Talking politics with Cassie was even worse than girltalk. I was ready to switch back over.

"Ugh. Never mind. How was lunch with Ronnie? Find some new Hork-Bajir homelands?"

"He asked me out. We're doing dinner and a movie or something Friday after work."

I nearly choked on a cookie, my mouth had gone suddenly dry. Cassie slammed me on the back a couple times.

"He  _what?!_ " I demanded. "You're  _what?!_ "

Ronnie Chambers worked with the Hork-Bajir, along with Cassie. He'd been assigned by the president's task force several months ago in the spring and I knew they had become close friends. I had met him a few times, so I at least knew he was a good guy. He genuinely seemed to love his job as much as Cassie did. He was older, I think Cassie mentioned he was 25 and she was still only 18 for another couple months, but the reality was that the Animorphs had aged up a long time ago. Ronnie was handsome, funny in a quiet sort of way, and obviously smart. In the near minute that Cassie sat there silently sizing up my reaction, I could not think of a single thing that was wrong with him. Other than he wasn't...

"You're thinking about Jake."

"Did I mention I hate that you always know what I'm thinking," I grumbled.

"It's not that hard, Rachel. You've been clinging to the war for years," she said frankly. "You think of those days as the 'good ole days' like some old war hero playing poker with his army boys. It's why you practically refuse to make any new friends, why you're having such a hard time moving on from Tobias, and why even after three years of barely seeing Jake at all, you still feel like he's my boyfriend."

"Whatever." I took her tea and started to drink it, like an angry child trying to spite her mother.

Cassie scowled. "I'm sorry, but you know I'm right. You always get angry when I'm right."

"You keep trying to make me feel bad about not adjusting!"

"You were going to try and make me feel bad about not being with Jake anymore!"

I put her tea down and started to massage the bridge of my nose. I was starting to get a headache. I needed more caffeine, and Cassie's tea wasn't cutting it.

"Rachel, listen, I'm not going to rush you through your life. Feel your feelings for however long you need. I love you, okay? I'm here for you. But we  _do_ need to move on from our war with the Yeerks. Nothing is the same as it was, and it never will be. I'm not going to stop dating everyone other than Jake just because you want to live in some fantasy where the six of us will stay the same forever. Okay?"

I mumbled under my breath.

"What?"

"I said, Ronnie seems cool," I relented. I would give her that. My annoyingly happy, self-righteous best friend could have that, at least.

She smiled and gave me a hug, knowing I was at least attempting at some kind of peace. Her words echoed in my head. I could tell she'd wanted to say that for a while, and she was right. I had liked the way things were during the war. I didn't like that it had changed. But it was what it was, I guess.

Cassie finished up her email and signed out of her account. "I need help picking an outfit. Actually, no, I don't, but you're going to whine about what I'm wearing regardless so I might as well just nip all that in the bud and have you dress me in the first place because I don't want to be late."

 

* * *

 

I already had a ton of homework to do, but when Marco's limo showed up at the front of our house and the driver said he was there to pick us  _both_  up, Cassie convinced me to come along.

The plan originally was for her to meet up with Marco at his place so they could discuss their tactics during tonight's nationally-televised primetime discussion. As the unofficial spokespeople for the Animorphs, the two of them were going to have a chat with Bob Greenfield, some famous news reporter that I probably should have known more about. It wasn't a formal debate, but the discussion was about the Visser, formerly Visser One and even more formerly our nemesis Visser Three, and his current incarceration.

The monster we still could only think of as Visser Three, was currently being held host-less, completely blind, mute, and helpless, in a weird purple box the Andalites rigged up. The box fed him Kandrona rays to keep him alive and, at the request of people who for some reason didn't want him to suffer during his lifelong isolated imprisonment, it sedated him. Three years ago, an "unknown individual" tipped off the United States government about a hidden Yeerk installation in the Nevada desert. It seemed its purpose was for bio-engineering, and a few of its products were still there running around in a pen - horses, whose brains had been modified for infestation by Yeerks. There were more dead horses than live ones, but they rescued and rehabilitated three of them. Once a week, Visser Three was allowed to infest a horse and feel some small bit of sensation and freedom in a closely-guarded 50 by 50 foot field. He could hear, see, smell, taste, and to some small extent communicate. For two hours a week, he was allowed to be alive.

Marco and I had wanted to just throw the Yeerk into a fire. Cassie and Tobias thought he should be imprisoned, but were horrified by the purple box the Andalites had given us to keep him in. They claimed like many others that it was basically like prolonging death, and it was too cruel. Jake at the time was struggling through his own demons so he had no public opinion. Thus, Earth was divided, some standing behind Marco and I and some Cassie and Tobias's camp. Eventually, I got sick of all the arguments and gave Ax a quick call. He set me up a secret, encrypted phone line and I gave the tip. It worked. Earth found their own solution to the Visser problem, and I didn't have to mention a single Andalite toilet to anyone.

To this day we'd kept that particular embarrassment of a mission to ourselves.

The Andalites also found a way to modify their own animals they considered non-sentient and incarcerated their criminal-of-war Yeerks in the same manner. Everybody won, even those slugs. Cassie had wanted to come forward with the story of the Iskoort, but I managed to squash that idea. We all agreed that missions involving the Ellimist were not to be mentioned. That was a whole new can of worms, and our planet was only just coming to grasp the concept of  _regular_ aliens. Besides, humans and Andalites already knew it was possible to modify non-sentient species for Yeerks to infest. It was only a matter of time before someone thought, "Hey, what if we engineer an entire species specifically for being symbiotes with Yeerks!?" The seed had been planted, which is what the Ellimist had wanted all along.

But now, after years of letting Earth hold the Visser, it seemed the Andalites wanted to try him themselves in their own justice system. Cassie and Marco were going to advocate for the humans, and how we should keep the Visser here, since we were the ones he committed crimes against. One Andalite, some analyst or whatever, was going to be there to argue for his own race, along with a like-minded human named Beth Jerabek, some senator from New York. According to her and the Andalites, Visser Three's crimes started long before he came to Earth, and he should be tried for those as well.

On one level I figured their guilt stemmed from way back, when Andalites discovered the Yeerks and basically let them loose in the universe. They probably felt some sort of responsibility for this whole thing. On the other hand, they were probably still just really pissed about the Visser having the balls to infest a high and mighty Andalite.

Either way, I didn't care about this fight. Unless this was resolved by shooting the Visser into the sun, I was done with it.

"I'm really sorry for making you and Marco do all this alone," I said, actually only  _slightly_  sorry about it.

"It's fine, Rachel. You officially have your own stuff going on. Marco and I, this is our job."

Cassie was nose deep in some of her notes, scribbling and erasing here and there. We were alone in the back of the limo, so we had lots of room to stretch out. Cassie was huddled in a corner surrounded by papers, looking stressed but amazing in the navy blue blazer and pencil skirt I'd thrown on her.

The limo ride was almost an hour to were Marco lived, which was a mansion on a hill surrounded by a random assortment of celebrities. We never actually drove there ourselves before, we only ever flew as birds or he sent us a limo, because that was just Marco these days. Cassie was using the time to prepare, and I'd brought along my homework, since Marco being an ass and refused to leave me alone in my own damn house.

"Come on, I'm not going to make you come to the studio. You can watch us on one of the new LED HDTV's I had installed. They're like 7 feet across!" He had said on the phone, when the driver dutifully called him from the limo. I had glared with all my might, but Marco made him give the phone to me. "You can even study your nerdy-ass college stuff if you want. Just come out for once, it's been a while!"

The boy did not understand the meaning of humble. His mansion was massive, about twice the size of the mansion he'd bought for his reunited parents, and he was the only one really living in it. A 9-bedroom 10-bath mega-mansion, with an elevator, 10-car garage, pool, basketball court, movie theater and actual guesthouse with smaller garage and jacuzzi. Marco's property was its own gated community within a larger gated community. Plus he had more places in New York, Italy, and God knew where else. Excess? What was that?

After the war all of us, even Tobias for a miniscule portion, featured in a documentary about the Animorphs. It was the number one movie in America for all the months it was in theaters, and the DVD was the number one selling movie of all time. We all could retire comfortably as teenagers on that and its royalties alone, but Marco would not rest until he ruled Hollywood. He hosted lots of celebrity events and even the Emmy's red carpet once. For the upcoming season he was the host of American Idol, as well.

He wasn't the only one keeping busy. Cassie wrote a book, which had been at least top 3 on the NY Times BestSeller list for 2 years, plus she had her government job with the Hork-Bajir. Jake had his own gig as morphing instructor at the military base in Hawaii, and of course Ax had also gone the military route as Prince back on the Andalite homeworld.

Other than the red-tailed hawk that lived in the forest eating mice, I was the only one that hadn't gotten a "real" job.

I stared at my Calculus homework at the back of Marco's limo, suddenly feeling very small.

When we arrived at the edge of his domain, we confirmed our identities with Marco's security stations,  _plural_ , and our driver drove us up the obscenely large cul de sac, which wrapped around a massive marble fountain, and parked in front a large set of marble steps.

We thanked the driver and tipped him. Then we climbed all the way up the stairs and rang the doorbell. The theme song to Jurassic Park played back at us and Marco's butler answered the door.

"Hi, Mr. McPherson," Cassie greeted politely.

"Mr...I thought your named was Wetherbee?" I looked at the middle-aged British man.

"My name is McPherson, Mr. Lanza just prefers to call me Wetherbee," he said stiffly. "Please make yourselves comfortable in the drawing room while I fetch him."

He extended a white-gloved hand in the direction of Marco's living room. His first living room, anyway.

"Thanks, uh, sir." I wasn't sure which name to call him now.

"There is no need call me that, Miss Berenson." He led us inside and politely waited for the both of us to be seated before turning on his heel to find Marco. The "drawing room" was essentially a living room bigger than the entire first floor of our house.

"So. Anyone else think Marco's gone crazy?" I said, poking at a set of hanging silver balls, one of those things that demonstrated the transfer of energy or whatever. It was sitting on an end table with a bobblehead of Kobe Bryant.

"We've known that since we met him," Cassie said. "I just wish he'd call Mr. McPherson by his real name."

I tossed my books down on the chrome coffee table and reclined on the no doubt ridiculously expensive sectional. I'd been here many times before, so I knew exactly were the button was to activate the power recliner. My portion of the couch began to flatten out and my legs were lifted up.

"Hey Cassie, hand me the control? Or can you activate the back massager?"

She made a face, but complied. The leather warmed slightly and then started to knead the knots from my back.

"Marco wasn't kidding about this TV," Cassie observed. "It's huge. Nearly as big as the wall he uses with the 3D projector in his actual living room."

I groaned in response. This couch was extremely stupid, but it felt so good.

"Presenting Mr. Lanza and Miss Sirota," Wetherbee announced. He nodded once and walked off, hopefully to go write his letter of resignation. I moaned again in greeting. The damn couch was hitting just the right spot between my shoulders.

Cassie turned to see Marco, admittedly well dressed and looking pretty good, and his girlfriend Svetlana Sirota, a six foot tall blond Russian model, walk into the room. We hated her. Or, well, I kind of did. Cassie insisted that she supported Marco in his decisions, but I saw that twitch in her false smile.

"Hey ladies! Lookin' good," Marco greeted. "Care for some drinks?"

"We're not legal yet," Cassie said distastefully. The bimbo on Marco's arm giggled.

"I meant like, soda or water or whatever," Marco said, detaching himself from Svetlana and ducking behind his extensive home wet bar. "Rachel? Anything? Coffee? A martini? A quickie in the library stacks of Blythe University?"

"Coffee sounds really good – wait, what?!"

Svetlana cracked up so hard she had to sit down. Next to me. I refrained from shoving her off the couch.

Marco grinned. "I take it you didn't go on Yahoo! News at all today."

"No?"

He emerged from behind the bar with a teeny high-tech laptop. He flipped it open and presented it to me. I saw my face at the top of the page and read the headline. My jaw dropped.

" _ANIMORPH HAS ROMANTIC TRYST WITH LOCAL COLLEGE BOY!?_ " I raged.

"So they say."

"That's a lie!" I fumed, slamming Marco's computer shut.

"Hey, that's expensive!"

"Those  _assholes!_  We just talked! For like, five minutes total, maybe!"

Cassie's hand was holding my shoulder, pulling me down. I hadn't even realized I was trying to get up. "Rachel, relax. Remember what we said about the tabloids? Just forget it."

She took the laptop from me and opened it. "Besides, this isn't so bad. They've written worse about you. No pictures, of course...they just say... _ew!_  In the bathroom!?"

"Wait 'til you get to the part with them going at it in the computer lab."

 _"Ugh."_  I tucked my head between my knees. "Marco, forget the coffee."

"Atta girl. A Marco Special on the rocks, coming right up."

Cassie continued to scroll down the news article, her eyes getting wider. "Oh. My. Well. If there's anything good about this, it's that creativity in America is certainly still thriving."

"Ughhh."

She eyed me over the top of the computer. "You know, even if you did fool around a little bit with someone, that's not like a bad thing."

" _Ughhhhh."_

Marco handed me some random thing in a glass and I gulped it down, letting it burn my throat. Svetlana tutted at my appalling behavior. I glared at her and she decided not to make any more clicky dolphin noises. Marco took a seat on the sofa across from us, and Svetlana got up to sit on his lap, despite the large expanse of room on the cushions next to him. Cassie and I shared a discreet look.

"So, this thing with Bob Greenfield," Marco started, taking a sip of his own drink and letting his concubine have the rest.

Cassie nodded and pushed her notes across the table to him. Marco was just reaching out to grab them when his cell phone started to ring in his pocket, underneath where Svetlana was sitting. She giggled.

"Eet eez on vibrateeng," she said huskily. She reached down to slowly grab the phone from his pocket. I almost vomited in my empty glass and Cassie averted her eyes upward. Marco at least had the decency to look embarrassed at the woman's behavior as he took the phone from her. Svetlana snarled hungrily into his ear. He answered the phone.

"Hey. Oh, yeah, Cassie and I are going over the notes now. Uh-huh. Yeah, we'll be ready for pick-up by 7 or so. It's a short ride to the station. Yeah, okay, cool. Bye."

He hung up.

"Was that Kono?" Cassie asked. Kono was Marco's long-suffering personal assistant. Her, I actually liked.

"Yeah, she's gonna have Jim bring the limo back around in an hour or two." To Svetlana, he said, "Sweetie, I gotta work tonight. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow for the photoshoot?"

Svetlana pouted, but slinked off his lap and got her purse.

"I vill miss you every minute until then!"

She stuck her tongue down so deep down Marco's throat that I got nauseous and then giggled and pranced her way out the front door, where one of Marco's valet staff had already driven up in her Porsche. We looked at Marco. He blushed.

"She has  _really_  good taste in music."

 

* * *

 

Marco was all business once his girlfriend left. He opened a powerpoint of his own notes and compared them to Cassie's handwritten ones. They discussed strategies to get more of the American people on their side and how to stick it to the Andalites without sounding too forceful. Rumor was, the government was planning to allow them a base here on Earth. We didn't want to step on any toes.

I put a few suggestions out there, but my heart really wasn't in it and I purposefully faded into the background, trying to refocus on American Lit.

Half an hour later, Sakurako Kono stopped by. I was genuinely pleased to see her. She was young, actually still just a senior political science major at Blythe University with me. Marco met her at some rally a year ago and they hit it off. They hit it off so well, actually that I was sure they would eventually start dating. We were surprised to learn that he instead hired her as his personal assistant and unofficial PR rep for her undergrad internship. She was excellent at her job, had wonderful public speaking skills, and would do great things in Washington some day. It was tough to get a job in the big leagues, though. She passed up an internship with some Congressman she hated to get her foot in the door someplace else. Lucky for her, she met the most famous man in the US. You could say a lot of things about Marco, but he was a networking dream. Kono was fantastic at organizing all of Marco's entertainment businesses, she was even better at managing the press, but where she really excelled was this. Politics.

"Hey, guys!" Kono greeted brightly. She hugged Cassie and I. "Rachel! I didn't know you were coming! I thought you would be busy with school stuff. I remember what freshman year was like."

I pointed forlornly at my small stack of books.

"Oh. Don't worry, it'll go by quick. It did for me, anyway." Kono shook her head. "I can't believe I'm graduating in May. But hey, if that's American Lit with Professor Olu then I can definitely help you with that."

"Thanks."

"You haven't decided on a major yet, have you?" she sat down next to me and started looking over my syllabus. Kono was a tiny little spitfire. Shorter even than Cassie, she didn't look remotely formidable, but the girl did not stop moving. Ever. And nothing wore her out. When she walked, you had to jog to keep up. When she talked, you had to listen carefully because she had a lot to say and only a little time allotted in her busy life to say it. When she set her mind on something, it was going to get done. Hard.

Unfortunately, she didn't have time to wait, either. Her near complete lack of attention span sort of counteracted her inhuman productivity.

"Oooh. This test? He reuses the same questions every year, just mixes the order around. I can help you with that." She winked and I expressed my undying gratitude. Behind me I could feel Cassie's burning disapproval and Marco's glowing pride. She was one of the only people I met after the war that I could actually call a friend, but I was soon forgotten as she handed the syllabus back to me, complimented me on growing my hair out, and joined Marco and Cassie's huddle. I re-opened my collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, feeling a bit like I had just been tossed by a whirlwind.

Cassie tapped me on the shoulder an hour later and I sat up, unsticking my face from the pages of the book I'd fallen asleep on.

"Rach? The limo's here. We're heading out, you sure you don't want to come?"

"And end up on Yahoo News again? No thanks," I grumbled.

Kono frowned. "I read that. Sorry."

Marco grabbed a remote and turned on his stupidly big TV. The screen made the entire room light up.

"We're on channel 7 in two hours! Until then, I have movies in that cabinet over there, and you're free to do whatever you want." He handed me the remote and pointed at one of the touchscreen buttons. "That one is the hot tub. It comes up from under the floor right there."

I couldn't even scowl at him, I was so amazed.

"We'll be back by like, 11 at the latest," Cassie said. She looked at Kono and she nodded in confirmation. "Probably earlier than that. You should be fine though, since your first class doesn't start until 10-something in the morning."

"Kono's gonna help me field the press after the show ends," Marco added. "We already have an escape car ready for Cassie. It'll bring her back here to get you and then get you guys home."

Cassie waved and was out the door with Kono, giggling about something. Marco hung back to grab his coat.

"Hey, Rachel," he said, almost whispering. "I, uh, I didn't just ask you to come so you could nap on my couch."

"Yeah?"

"I wanted to give you this," Marco went over to his closet and handed me a new laptop. "A college present."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Thanks, but you know I already have a computer. And that I barely know how to use it."

"Not like this one. I had some Andalite assistance fiddling with it. Untraceable, undetectable. Able to draw wifi from a mile away, and cracks all network security passwords for access."

"What do you think people  _do_  in college?!"

He grinned. "No idea."

"You wanted me to come here just to give me a computer?" I asked skeptically, taking it anyway. It looked pretty fancy. I could give my old one to Jordan, who would be starting her junior year of high school next month

"Not just that," Marco tapped the lid. "There's a file on the desktop. I want you to open it."

"A file you could have just emailed me if you wanted," I said, flipping over the top. Matte screen, anti-glare. Light-up keyboard. Large trackpad. Fancy.

Marco sighed and shut the laptop so I would pay attention. "I kind of just wanted to see you. It's been a while."

I studied him closely. Before the war, we were barely acquaintances in school. Just that kid that hung out with my cousin Jake. During the war, we could loosely be considered friends. We saved each others lives on practically a daily basis. We laughed. We clashed. We fought. We made up. We needed each other. But other than the Animorphs, we had no connection. I would have thought that after the war, we would have just gone back to being acquaintances. Polite nods in public, the occasional Christmas card, stuff like that. It was strange, that Marco and I kept up a relationship when we no longer had to. Why try to be close to me now, when the only times the two of us really tried to reach out emotionally were...

I scowled. The only time we were really that kind was when I went to visit him after we tried to assassinate his mother, Visser One. I also remembered during our Royan Island mission, I lied and pretended to hear his mother escape on an invisible ship. He knew I was lying to make him feel better, and thanked me for it. We were really only ever this awkwardly nice to each other when one of us was to be pitied.

Did Marco pity me?

"We saw each other at the Fourth of July banquet thing, remember?" I said finally.

"Yeah, well, that was over a month ago and I don't hear from you much anymore. Other than what I hear from everyone else. Cassie, Kono, and even Toby. I know Jake and Tobias haven't been keeping in touch with you either, so I can't get anything from them."

I narrowed my eyes. Marco did pity me. For my life, or lack thereof? Did he know about my secret out-of control morph incidents? Of course not. He just felt sorry for me, the fact that the media picked on me, and that I didn't fit quite as well into this world as him and Cassie. He pitied me like he pitied Jake and Tobias.

"I'm fine. You have my number if you really need to be in my business," I grumbled, trying hard not to be angry. "Don't call me though. Text me. I can only deal with hearing your voice every so often, and you're already in every radio commercial."

Marco laughed. "I'll text you, then."

He started to walk out the door, but I grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait. Um, thanks."

He shrugged, without turning around. "No problem, Rach."

**Author's Note:**

> Any Animorphs fans still out there? lol
> 
> Again, this fic has been on Another Site for several years now, so it is possible to read pretty far ahead. This version is probably going to be the better one though. I'll be uploading here one or two chapters at a time until I'm all caught up at both sites. I did toy with the idea of changing this to third person or whatever, but ultimately decided to stick with the original feel and tone of the series. That was the point of this fic in the first place, to be a seamless continuation of the series I grew up with and adored.


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